Wednesday, 23 October 2013

Prop Development

Now that the character is nearing the end of its design process, it became important to begin developing his main props. Considering our character is a Viking, the most obvious prop will be his weapon. Drawing on previous research for influence, I begun to develop a series of sketches experimenting with shape and style to gain an idea of the final object in which would suit the Viking's character. While sketching, I decided it would be best to create some general ideas in the ideas of broadswords, hammers, and the most obvious, the iconic Viking axe.

Figure 1. Axes

Figure 2. Broadswords

Figure 3. Hammers

It became apparent to me that when designing these weapons, incorporating subtle detail into our character's prop design could be a nice contrast with his simplified forms. Using simple shapes to begin the construction of each thumbnail sketch, the driving concept was to create imaginative weapons that fit the Viking visual style and also would suggest the strength and size of our character. From Figure 1, I like the simple design of sketch 2, but I also like the design of 4 with the subtle details connecting the axe head to the shaft. The most appealing sword from Figure 2 personally is design 3 due to its relatively historic accuracy regarding shape, and that fact that the broadness reflect our character additionally. However with the designs in Figure 3, I had the idea that the hammer could serve as a secondary weapon that could be a prop that is holstered on our characters belt. With this in mind, the simplicity of concept 6 appeals greatly, but in terms of using a hammer as our character main weapon, ideas 1 and 5 fit the bill nicely.

Hey Jake, this is looking good.I like Axe (1) in terms of its simplicity and its texture, broadsword (6) which is visually pleasing and hammer (5) which shows a nice mix between style and "volume".Keep it up guys